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Points of divergence dealing with alternate developments of spaceflight and spacecraft. All POD entries are sorted as chronologically as possible.

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Challenge: Plausible reason for a tech-advanced ATL with no spaceflight technology

Earliest possible spaceflight ?

Earliest possible Space Age ?

WI Pedro Paule went public ?

Challenge: An Austro-Hungarian space programme, oh my !

Earliest possible Space Program in the 20th Century

(Earliest) Capability for sending first satellite into orbit ?

Alternate space programs

What sort of space race would have developed without the two world wars ?

A delayed Space Race

Would a successful Polish space program be possible ?

WI: Early Cold War air and space technology without the German rocket program

WI: Von Braun dies in WWII

WI: No V-2 Missiles

NASA without Von Braun

Challenge: 3-way moon race with a post-1945 POD

Alternate space powers ?

Challenge: As many manned, sustainable space programs as possible

Plausibility check: If mankind had taken space exploration even more seriously

Challenge: Earliest possible lunar landing

Which is the best location for a spaceport ?

Alternate Space Launch Sites

Alternate mundane NASAs

NASA Wank (with a POD after 1950)

Plausibility check: If NASA had followed a "natural" progression ?

Plausibility check: WI Europe dominated space exploration from the 50s onwards, instead of the US ?

Earliest possible Mars landings with PODs in the early 1960s

Discussion about alternate developments of heavy launchers in the 1960s and 1970s

Alternate spaceflight projects and developments from the 1960s to the 1990s

WI Pioneer 0 was a success

WI: Surviving X-20

Capsules versus alternative spacecraft

WI Gagarin flew aboard the ill-fated Soyuz 1 ?

WI: N-1 program started in 1961 ?

WI: Grissom drowns in Liberty Bell 7, 1961

WI: Space Race focused on space stations

Plausibility check: More British involvement in spaceflight

A Commonwealth Space Programme

Challenge: EU-Commonwealth Space Programme

WI: Blue Streak not cancelled ?

Plausibility check: JFK proposing a joint lunar mission to the Soviets

Challenge: Lunex, not Apollo

Alternate American space program (mid-1960s onwards)

WI: Soyuz to the Moon ?

Plausibility check: USSR with a working Lunar Mission ?

No Outer Space Treaty (1)

No Outer Space Treaty (2)

DBWI: US Manned Mission to the Moon

NASA from Stephen Baxter's novel Voyage ISOTed To OTL

Armstrong and Aldrin land on moon but never make it back to lunar orbit

Had the Space Race stayed on trajectory after Apollo 12, how would it develop ?

A plausible way to recreate the universe of 2001 : A Space Odyssey ?

Plausibility check: Space Elevator ?

Challenge: Pan Am Supersonic Transports and Space Clippers

Challenge: Routine Space Tourism

If Germany got a start in the OTL 1960s, could it today offer spaceflight for tourists ?

Earth seen regularly from orbit by thousands of tourists - any psychological/social effects ?

Plausibility check: WI Project Orion was launched in the 1970s ?

Alternate outcomes for OTL cancelled or undeveloped space probe projects

More Canadian Space Agency firsts ?

Plausibility check: Moon base

A Space Race that never lost its tempo since the 1960s ?

Earlier Space Shuttle ?

WI: Shuttle uses Saturn V stages as boosters

WI: (Mostly) wingless Shuttle

WI the Sea Dragon succeeds Apollo

The Space Shuttle is not built

WI: Chinese Men to Space... by the 1970s

Challenge: Chinese to the Moon in the 1970s/1980s

Ronald Reagan's Space Exploration Initiative alternate outcomes

Skylab and Shuttle

Cultural effects of no Space Shuttle program and continued Skylab flights on the science fiction genre ?

Challenge: Skylab B + Salyut 6 = ISS in 1976 ?

Plausibility check: NASA astronaut in Soviet Interkosmos program ?

Challenge: Space Shuttle Wank

Challenge: Improve the Shuttle (1)

Challenge: Improve the Shuttle (2)

Possibilities with the Space Shuttle ?

Discussion on the Skylab and Space Shuttle projects being used concurrently

Plausibility check: Earlier, post-1980s NASA manned Mars mission ?

Challenge: Man on Mars by 1985

NASA's 1986 probe mission to Halley's Comet ?

WI: Space Shuttle Atlantis disaster, 1988

Space exploration in a continued Cold War

Challenge: ESA's flight spacesuit and extravehicular spacesuit

Challenge: ESA's Hermes shuttle flies

DBWI: ESA didn't develop the Aries ?

Plausibility check: Space Exploration Initiative succeeds ?

WI: The Russians sell the Buran shuttle in the early 1990s

Plausibility check: Post-Soviet Energia rocket

Challenge: (Plausible) ESA wank !

Challenge: Build a space base on the Moon by 1999

Advanced space propulsion systems in the 1990s

WI the Beagle 2 lander was succesful ?

Challenge: A continuation of the Apollo program

Brazilian space WI: The 2003 VLS-1 rocket accident doesn't occur

Discussion on the exploration, colonization and terraforming of Mars

Space travel and economies of scale

Plausibility check: Economic effects of solar power satellites ?

Plausibility check: Venusian space programme

Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.

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Problems With The Orion Spacecraft , courtesy of Ian

Spaceflight after Apollo: Whither 2001 ?, courtesy of Workable Goblin

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Points of Divergence : Aircraft

Useful resources about Space and Spaceflight

Spaceflight Timelines

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Scientific Discoveries and Inventions PODs Main Directory

Points of Divergence Main Directory